Here we are at a party, barbeque or somewhere during our normal daily social/lives. The background is one of the Vulcans (volcanoes) we rode past in Ecuador, South America, at the beginning of our Andes Trail trip in 2014.After many 1,000's of kms riding & vertical 1,000,s meters of climbing we got to the little picture in the top right of this image. Its Jeanette at 4850m on the continental divide of the Andes mountain range, this is in the Huascaran national park high up in the Peruvian Cordillera Blanco.
                                 

We won't be eating these little critters in Europe Now Jeanette has decided to take a change in her work direction. Leaving her an opportunity to take some well-earned time off after 16 years of service to the country, we are off on another cycling trip. I would love to go back to the Andes, 13,000 kms of mountains from the Caribbean to the (almost) Antarctica. But for the moment have decided to ride from north to south along the old Iron Curtain political divide in Europe. This time we will be unsupported???? Its Europe what can go wrong? Hopefully we will only have adventures that we can manage?

                                             

We will not get as high as these 6,000m Andean peaks but we intend to get into hills in the Tatra & Carpathian Mountains Any how I digress, very soon we are out of here and Oslo here we come. Follow us and our sponsors on our IronCurtainTour for fun and frolics on the bikes as we visit the Vikings, the Prussians, the Gypsies and all the other Easties of Europe.